Event promotion requires enough lead time to create interest. Its also important to use more than one method to communicate the event message since people differ in their communication preferences. Marketing your event to generate awareness is half the battle to getting a good turnout. Generating a buzz is imperative. In this article, we highlight ways to get the word out. A variety of these different methods ensures a more successful event.
Email:
If you already have a mailing list or email newsletter, you’ve found an effective option for event promotion. Consider reaching out via email more than just once because it enhances the likelihood your audience will receive the message. Each email should direct folks to your website or appropriate location to register or purchase tickets. Plan an email campaign with 2 or 3 different emails. A 3 sequential email campaign might look something like the table below and could start 1 month prior to your event:
TIP: Separate from the email campaign, consider creating your own custom email signature for your event team members and use it when sending emails. The custom email signature can contain a simple message and a link similar to “Event of the century… tickets on sale now!”.
Event Website:
An existing event website can be leveraged for event promotion. Include a link on the website for your participants to click for ticket purchases or online registration. This will direct website visitors to the appropriate location to complete the process. You may need to work with your website administrator to make these changes.
Be sure to use clear Call-to-Actions (CTAs). Ideally, you only want one CTA per page.
Social Media:
Social media is another great way to communicate a link to your event registrants, and folks that will buy event tickets. Paste a link into a post or message on popular social network platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Linked In. Give your message the best chance of being seen by your followers with frequent message posts to these social media channels. Remember to use a consistent hashtag across as many social networks as possible.
TIP: Be sure to communicate your official event hashtag to your participants.
Facebook Call-to-Action Button
If you have a Facebook page for your event, you can set the Call-to-Action button (e.g. a “Sign Up” button). This helps drive visitors to your registration forms. Learn how to add a call-to-action button here . Customers who add a call-to-action button to their Facebook page generally report a 2.5x higher conversion rate when compared to other social placements aimed to drive new event sign ups.
Social Media Ad Campaigns
If you’re already running ad campaigns on these platforms, a great way to extend your reach is to target a similar audience with encouragement to register for the event. For example, you could use Facebook Custom Audiences to find an audience that contains people similar to the ones that have visited your website. You can then create an ad to encourage audience members to register for your event or to purchase tickets.
Social Referrals:
Encourage participants that have signed up for your event to share the event with their friends on Twitter or Facebook. This type of event promotion will enable your event to reach an even broader audience, many of which may not be known to you previously. You can further incent current participants to generate referrals by offering them something in return for a successful referral, like a prize, referral fee or maybe just a big high-five!
Video:
A great way to encourage participation in your event is through an engaging video. Generate excitement in your event by making it easy to imagine themselves there. This will be easy to do if you’ve run the event previously and have photos or footage from the prior year to use in this form of event promotion. A simple highlight reel that’s focused on a specific participants experience is a great way to show potential registrants what it’s like to be a part of your amazing event. This may be as simple as a slideshow of pictures, or a highly produced video segment. Either way, keep it short and sweet!
Another option is to use testimonial video from past participants that show how much fun it can be to participate in your event.
Be sure to link the video directly to the many channels you leveraged above be it email, social media or website. This is made easier by the fact that many video hosting sites allow linking. YouTube, for example, uses Cards. Click here to see how.
Post this video to as many places as you can (YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter, etc…).
Affiliates:
Event affiliations like sanctioning bodies, industry partners, and event sponsors can help promote your event. Reach out to them and ask for them to promote and link to your registration forms to encourage sign ups. They too have a vested interest in the success of your event.
ClearEvent can help:
As an event management software, ClearEvent has certain features built in to make sharing your event details easy to do. Here are just some of the useful features for event promotion:
- Providing accessible links directly to registration sign up form(s)
- Private registration forms that can be sent to a subset population
- Event hashtag creation and display
- Facebook and Twitter share icons at the bottom of registration pages for easy encouragement of participant referral once completed.
To read more on how ClearEvent makes form sharing easy for event managers click here.
Interested In Other Topics?
As a conference planner, knowledge is key. Check out the ClearEvent blog for more helpful articles. And let us know topics you’d like to hear about to help increase your event planning success, at support@clearevent.com.
In the meantime, Happy Planning!